Hi I’m Aimee Bateman from Careercake.com and in this video we’re going to talk about three ways that will help you improve your leadership skills.

So who do you think of when you’re asked to think of a great leader, who is your go to name?

So, for me it’s Arianna Huffington or Chase Jarvis from creativelife.com, I think those guys are doing some amazing things, it could be Richard Branson, it could be Steve Jobs, it could be somebody you know, so like a friend, maybe your boss or a lecturer, a friend, a family member, you know these people are around us all the time.

Could be somebody from your favourite TV show, so for me It’s the West Wing, I’m obsessed with that show and Jed Bartlett, he taught me loads about leadership skills even though he’s not even a real person. But good leaders are everywhere, they’re not necessarily just running big businesses, they’re in your book club, they’re in your friendship circles, they’re in your community groups, they’re in sports teams.

To be a great leader you have to be able to motivate others, you’ve got to have a really clear vision and you’ve got to be passionate and you’ve got to belief in yourself for other people to want to follow you. The thing is about leaders and managers is that they’re very, very different things and a lot of the time people don’t necessarily understand the differences. Well a manager is somebody that can get something done within a function, so they can manage people or manage projects and functions but it’s already around detail. Whereas a leader, not always into the details, they are really, really good at motivating people and like I said you know setting a vision and getting people to want to follow them.

Now a lot of people say that leaders are born, so you’re either born a leader or you’re not, oh they’re a born leader, you hear that all the time and there is some definite, definite truth to that. But all of these leaders, as different as their leadership styles can be, always, always, share attributes, and these attributes can be worked on. In this video I’m going to give you three tips to make sure that you really, really work on these attributes and you can become a leader, and a great one at that. So get out there and act as a mentor, that’s number one, there are many ways that you can have an impact on people and mentoring is one of them.

You don’t just need to offer this mentorship in a work place environment, you can do this with your friends, your peers, on a range of ideas, not just career based stuff. But you need to provide that person that you’re mentoring with opportunities to develop their skills, so based on your experiences how can you help them, so in essence you’re acting as an advisory to these people, you’re listening to them, you’re coaching them, you’re helping them reflect and work out, you know, who they are, all that type of stuff.

All of this will help you be a leader one day, because you’re helping this person be the best version of themselves, and that ultimately will help you to develop your leadership skills, but just keep a track of everything so that you can come back to these examples in the future. Number 2, provide opportunities for growth, so Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox, says, and I could not agree more, you become the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, so, so true.

This means that you need to help others by creating an environment or a culture where everybody feels seen, heard, and valued, they can develop, they can excel, you know they’re never frightened to put their hand up, it’s your job, as a leader to create an environment where everyone can just be awesome, and flourish. I want you to make sure that you’re doing this in all of your activities, so not just your career stuff and those meetings that you go into, in all of the activities that you’re doing, even in your personal life. Don’t make this just a one off event, this has to be part of just everything that you do, make it a habit in all of your communication.

Number three, and possibly the most important, is that you have to lead by example, you have to be bold, you need to make those hard decisions, you trust your gut instinct and listen to it. A lot of people think that leaders are fearless and that is not true, they do feel fear but they do it anyway because they’re not frightened of failing, they question the status quo. Think about your favourite leader, and look at the things they’ve done and that they’ve achieved. They’re probably really bold, loads and loads of enthusiasm, they take people on journeys and to places that those people wouldn’t have been able to go themselves because yes they provide those environments but ultimately they lead by example, if you want somebody to follow you, you can’t be the person telling everybody to do this and not being prepared to do it yourself.

So I’m not saying be squeaky clean in everything you do but you know, you do have to be bold and you need to be brave at times. Ok so those are my three tips to getting yourself into a leadership role, to own those leadership skills, what I really want you to do is to write down in the comments below who your favourite leader is and tell me why, maybe it’s someone really famous and we’ll know it, maybe it’s someone in your personal life, we might not know them but I would really love to know why you admire them. One thing I want to hone in on as well is just keep track of everything ok, because in a year or two or three years’ time you’re going to be going for that interview, filling in that application form, having a conversation with somebody, and they’re going to want to know a little bit about your leadership skills, all of these things which you’re going to now do in your day to day life hopefully will have a huge impact on other people around you, you’ll have loads and loads of amazing things happening, and you can use these things as an example one day so keep a track of everything in this diary, almost sort of call it your leadership diary or your leadership plan, your leadership records, whatever you want to call it, just keep track of it, magic is going to happen and really, really wonderful things are going to happen around you, so keep a track of it.

Now keep in touch with us at Careercake.com, head over to the website and have a look at some of the courses that we’ve got, and some other awesome content that we only give to our subscribers and until next time take care, thank you for watching and keep in touch.

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Having spent over a decade as a leading recruiter, Aimee has placed over 5000 people into employment, from start-ups to large global firms. She is an award winning careers consultant, speaker and Founder of Careercake.com